Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

OPINION

Guest columnist: Public parks and recreational lands an investment in our future

North Carolinians love to get outdoors. A February news release from the North Carolina Division of Parks & Recreation announced that attendance at our state parks set a new record in 2015, with more than 17.3 million people visiting the state’s 39 parks.

Add to this the fact that our state’s population surpassed the 10 million mark in 2015, and it’s safe to assume that the desire to get away from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the great outdoors is only going to increase. In Western North Carolina, Lake James State Park led the way as the most popular last year, with more than a half-million visitors.

Fortunately our public recreational lands are not finished projects; they are growing units that have to be able to respond to the needs of the growing population. With this much demand, our state and federal agencies need every possible tool to ensure that our public recreational lands can accommodate North Carolinians, and can serve to protect the headwaters of rivers and streams that provide our drinking water.

Public parks and recreational lands are an investment in our future.

One of the best tools for making public recreational lands more complete, and providing additional points for public access, is the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), established in 1964. This federal program supports the protection of federal public lands like national parks and recreation areas; provides grant monies to state governments to develop state and local parks and other outdoor recreational spaces, such as ballfields; helps states fund habitat protection for threatened and endangered species; and protects working forests that support timber sector jobs.

In our area, LWCF funds have helped protect and expand beloved outdoor destinations like Catawba Falls and Chimney Rock, where hikers young and old can experience the beauty of the region. LWCF has also assisted in preserving the lands and views that hikers and drivers experience along the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway through funding the acquisition of inholdings from willing sellers within the trail and parkway’s viewsheds. In 2005, LWCF helped expand Lake James State Park by almost 3,000 acres, protecting 30 miles of shoreline; and providing hiking and mountain biking trails, picnic and kayaking facilities, and a public beach.

In January of this year, LWCF again benefited North Carolinians when grant funding assisted with a 129-acre expansion of Lake James State Park — this time helping state parks acquire two critical inholdings, resulting in state ownership of the lake’s entire Long Arm Peninsula whose scenic backdrop is the Linville Gorge National Wilderness.

Notably, LWCF funding doesn’t come from taxpayers’ pockets. By law, a small portion of the billions of dollars that energy companies make by extracting oil and gas through offshore drilling funds the program. They extract one public resource and help pay for another.

After 50 years of helping create parks, protect wildlife habitat, and provide opportunities for recreation, LWCF was on the brink of total expiration in 2015. Though it was reauthorized for three years — at half of the amount set forth in its original language in the omnibus federal spending package Congress established in December — its future is far from certain.

Permanent Congressional reauthorization of the fund is needed to ensure that this tool remains available to our communities. Without permanent reauthorization, the program will be vulnerable to our nation’s often-volatile political climate. And as we saw last year, it’s much easier for Congress to sit by and let something like LWCF expire, than to actively reauthorize it.

Fortunately key members of North Carolina’s Congressional delegation understand the value of the program. Congressman Patrick McHenry is a co-sponsor of H. 1814, which would permanently reauthorize LWCF, and Senator Richard Burr literally wrote the Senate bill that will provide the fix. In his words, “I’m going to keep fighting for the Land and Water Conservation Fund because it makes it possible to conserve North Carolina’s natural treasures and at no cost to the taxpayers. The recent 129-acre expansion of Lake James State Park is one of many LWCF success stories that North Carolinians will enjoy for generations to come.”

I hope that as we continue to enjoy the outdoor spaces that the LWCF program has made possible in our state, and every state, that we remember its importance and urge our elected leaders to support its permanent authorization, so that parks, open spaces, wildlife habitats, and working forests remain available to us and future generations.

Susie Hamrick Jones is executive director of the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina in Morganton.